8. Aye Think I’m Hooked #2
I want to see who it is, to confirm my wild thoughts, but I can’t seem to push off my wobbling knees.
I’m certain I have nothing left in my stomach, that there can’t possibly be anything more, and yet I feel the bile rising in my throat, feel my body give up and into it.
Lips puckering, I struggle up on unsteady legs, a rough, warm hand catching my elbow as I teeter before leaning over the railing and retching into the sea once more.
Another hand rubs large circles into my back in the space between my shoulder blades, soothing and calming me, and for a moment, I let myself sink into the touch, my body going limp as the seawater mists over me, cooling my hot skin.
He drops his hand from my elbow and smooths away the hair clinging to my forehead, fingers cool and calloused against my skin. “You’re burning up.”
“Am not,” I mutter, the words coming out more slurred than intended.
He chuckles in my ear as his strong arms haul me the rest of the way up, one going around my shoulders, the other tight around my waist and settling against my ribs.
I’m sick and delusional, and I feel like I’ll never stand on my own again, but I find solace in his hand against my ribs, the gentle way he grips me, not hard enough to cause any discomfort, but enough to make me feel safe. Secure.
It’s been so long since anyone has held me like this.
“Come on,” he says against the shell of my ear, the resonance of his deep voice making me shiver. “Let’s find you somewhere more comfortable to rest.”
My vision is hazy as I stumble across the deck and down the stairs into Captain Night’s cabin, his arms catching me when I slip on a step.
“Stay out the cap’ain’s cabin,” I sing under my breath as he pulls me across the cabin and toward the bed behind the set of curtains as black as night. I catch one in my hands, the silky fabric slipping between my fingers. “Are these curtains black because your name is Night? That’s silly.”
“Yes, that’s precisely why I have black curtains.”
Sarcasm, I think. I rather like sarcasm on him.
He sets me down on the edge of his bed and lifts my legs up.
Sir grumbles but doesn’t move from his spot in the corner, and Captain Night angles my legs to leave room for the stubborn cat with a soft laugh.
I fall back against the pillows with an oomph, slumping down into the tangled mess of blankets.
The small mattress is soft under me, softer than the hammocks and the rough wool blanket Jack gave me to sleep with, and though my stomach still gurgles dangerously, I sink into the still-warm blankets with a sigh.
Warm from him. To think, only minutes ago, he was sleeping here, under these very blankets.
Do they smell like him? I pull them up to my chin, inhaling.
They do indeed smell like him, musky yet sweet, familiar yet new.
And as Captain Night sits down on the small sliver of space next to me, a cool, soaked cloth in his hands, I think, This can’t be real.
Because Captain Night is a strange, cruel man who’s made it very clear where my place is aboard this ship.
To him, I am a no one. I did not earn my spot in his crew, and we both know it.
Or I think we do.
Yet he is impossibly tender as he leans over me and presses the damp cloth against my forehead.
It gives me a moment of relief, the coolness calming the heat of my skin.
My eyes flutter closed, but I force them open, my attention trained on Captain Night.
I could look at him for hours. He is remarkable, with those dark eyes, the patchy salt-and-pepper scruff, the straight nose, the scars that mar his skin, making him only more beautiful.
I reach up to caress one, but he catches my hand before I can, tucking it back into my side in one fluid motion, completely unbothered, as though he’s done this before.
And as he readjusts the cloth, his untucked shirt billows out around him. I’m drawn to the golden skin lit by the faint glow of a candle, the sliver of a scar slashed across his chest in stretching, puckering lines. I want to skim my fingers along them, to see just how far down the scar goes.
To know who and what did this to him.
“Who hurt you?” I ask, the words coming out strange and garbled.
“I could ask you the same,” he says with a pointed look.
I don’t want him to know about Julian and how much I let him ruin me.
I don’t want him to know how broken I am.
I wish he could have known me before, the me when I was with Blake, splattered in paint, drunk on giddiness and expression.
The me who kissed and loved relentlessly. The me who wasn’t terrified of trying.
“I’m not supposed to be here,” I slur, running a finger along his wrist. The action is more sensual than I could have ever imagined, and I want to touch him, to pull him down to my level.
He regards me with a peculiar expression, and I admire him, the open shirt, the bits of ink poking out from beneath his collar and sleeves, the exposed ankles and calves.
Do I like calves? Is there such an obsession? Because his are absolute perfection.
“You are just fine where you are,” he says, gently prying my hand from his wrist and pinning it back to my side. Again.
Though he shouldn’t be kind, and though his calloused hands that are worn from wear and rope and carpentry and sword wielding shouldn’t be gentle, he is both.
I want him to stay beside me, to stretch out next to me on this narrow bed, but my throat is dry and aching, and my body is trying to tell me to sleep.
I want to thank him. Thank him for not killing me yesterday, for giving me a chance aboard this ship with this crew, even though I have done nothing to deserve it.
But my tongue is heavy, and sleep is pulling a curtain over me fast, and the only word that comes out of my mouth as my fingers graze Captain Night’s shirt is: “Beautiful.”
“I’m not beautiful.”
He wraps his hand around my fingers, intent on pushing them away, but he holds them for a moment before squeezing.
“You are,” I say, licking my lips.
He tracks the movement with a hungry expression before dropping my hand to my thigh.
Exhaling, I smile, sinking farther into the bed.
“You don’t value yourself nearly enough, Captain.
I see the way they look at you, the way you look at them.
You’ve built a home here.” I want to tell him more, tell him what he’s doing to me, but I can no longer keep my eyes open.
A finger skates across my cheek, and I feel something warm press against the space between my ear and my chin, the scratch of something rough scraping my cheek, but it’s gone just as quickly.
“It can be yours, too, if you let it,” he whispers.
Try as I might, within seconds, I’m drifting, until there is only darkness.
I sleep and wake with a fit, the fever burning through me.
I want to tug off my sweater one second and burrow into the blankets the next.
Everything is muted, as if underwater. I hear hushed voices, the creak of footsteps pacing back and forth over wooden boards.
But none of the sounds seem to pull me from this fog.
The damp cloth is replaced once during the night, and again sometime in the day, but I am too tired to see who does it.
Still, I hope it’s him. Someone covers my hand with theirs, and I want to grip it, to tangle my fingers with theirs, but I am too weak, and all too quickly I am drifting once more.
When my fever finally breaks, my lashes are crusted together with sleep and my clothes are soaked through with sweat.
My legs are tangled in soft blankets that are fraying at the edges, and I run my hands blearily over them before throwing them aside, finally aware of where I am.
I’m no longer in my hammock, instead spread languidly in sheets that are not mine and breathing in the soothing scent of tobacco, burnt sugar, and salt that belongs only to one person aboard this ship.
Sir is long gone, though he left a cat-size indent at the foot of the bed where he slept, keeping me company despite his stubbornness.
Like captain, like cat, I suppose.
Groaning, I blink against the light streaming in through the windows and sit at the edge of the bed before standing on wobbly legs, the leather of my ankle boots rubbing against the sides of my feet, making them raw and blistered.
The night comes back to me in waves, and I realize with a blush what happened, where I am, and how I got here. Captain Night, his bed, a cool cloth, and something that I can’t quite put my finger on—something that makes me shiver pleasantly.